


idlewild

by darkcomedylateshow



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Character Study, Magical Realism, Other, inspired by Firewatch but not a faithful adaptation, wilderness au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-20
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-16 05:22:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8088817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkcomedylateshow/pseuds/darkcomedylateshow
Summary: “So why did you come out here, Richard?”     “I’m sorry?”     “I was surprised when you accepted the job. When it comes down to it, not a lot of people decide to live alone in the wilderness for a whole summer without a good reason. So what made you choose Yontocket?”





	1. both sides now

**day 1**

 

     The hike took half a day longer than it was supposed to. Richard had slept into late afternoon after the first leg, and woke up covered in a thin layer of sweat. The combination of malaise and exhaustion and mosquitos followed him the rest of the day. The trail had long shadeless stretches, and even in the cool weather the sun beat down on his face. 

     He walks through groves of giant redwoods and pines packed together so densely he can barely see through the branches. Except for a couple of hikers he meets outside the campgrounds, he is alone. Time gets slower. The sameness and vastness and the quiet gets to him. He checks the same map with the same markings for the hundredth time, just in case he's lost, that he entered somewhere where nowhere could find him, somewhere with no way out. 

     Out here, as he is constantly reminded, it would be easy to disappear without a trace. 

     He reaches camp — Red Diamond Lookout — after dark, and drags himself up three flights of stairs, cool wind biting at his sunburnt face. The door to the tower is made of plywood and the knob is loose as he unlocks it. 

     He finds the light switch by the door and flicks it on. The quarters are modest at best. There’s a big wool blanket at the end of the vinyl mattress and a cheap-looking pillow. The floorboards are suspiciously creaky, but it’s warm and dry, and that’s all that matters. 

     On the desk, next to the brand-new radio system, is an ancient-looking modem. No more Internet unless he wanted to deal with booting that thing up. Whoever did his interview said that the other lookouts often used up the bandwidth, but that if Richard really wanted, he would talk to them about it. It seems like more trouble than it’s worth. 

     He’s about to peel off his clothes and crash on the bed when he hears the radio crackle, and someone says: “Richard, are you there?” 

     He lifts up the receiver gingerly and hunts for the button. “This is Richard, yeah.” 

     “Well, welcome to Yontocket State Park. This is Jared, your supervisor — we spoke on the phone before?” 

     “Right. Nice to meet you. Again, I mean.” 

     There’s a pause, and then another crackle. “So why _did_ you come out here, Richard?” 

     “I’m sorry?” 

     “I was surprised when you accepted the offer. When it comes down to it, not a lot of people decide to live alone in the wilderness for a whole summer without a good reason. So what made you choose Yontocket?” 

     “To, uh — to do work on computer models. For tracking wildfire behaviors.” 

     “Yes, but why did you come _here_? It’s just that — you seem so well-adjusted. Not a lot of people come out here unless they want to be left alone.” 

     “I —” He sucks in a nervous breath. “I dunno. I’m — still figuring it out, really. I mean, not really, since I’m _here_ now and I’m ready to do this. 

     “Right. You must be exhausted. Get some rest.” 

     “‘Night.” 

     He puts the receiver down and gets in bed — he can still hear the patter of Jared’s voice in his head, and he keeps hearing it in a far corner of his dreams, until he’s not sure if any of it was the least bit real.  

 

**day 3**

  

     When he wakes up, the sky is a vivid orange, and all of his limbs feel heavy. After laying there long enough, Richard notices that the sun is going down. 

     He stumbles to the radio and picks up the receiver. “Jared?” 

     In the split second of silence, Richard panics — was it real?— but then he answers: “You’re awake.” 

     “Yeah,” he says, going to the kitchenette. There’s some canned food, a few big jars of coffee, some peanut butter. “How long was I out?” 

     “About two days. I can’t blame you — it’s a difficult hike.” 

     He opens the door and steps outside, just for a moment. It’s surprisingly warm for northern California, warm and dry. When he’d left for the park they were three weeks into a drought, but he hadn’t been _outside_ like this in a while, and he’d forgotten what a dry spell really felt like. 

     He’s about to put his pack on and at least do somethingbefore sunset, so he doesn’t spend the whole night awake and doing nothing, when he hears the walkie-talkie from his desk again: “Richard?” 

     “Yeah?” 

     “I’m sorry about the other night,” Jared says, genuinely apologetic. “I shouldn’t have been so intrusive. Blame the psychologist in me.” 

     “Don’t worry about it,” Richard says. It’d be easier not to dwell on it at all, but he can’t help himself, so he adds: “I mean — what else are you going to do? Pretend that this is, you know, a normal job for normal people? I get it.” 

     “I’m not a researcher like yourself per se,” Jared says, his tone noticeably more excited, “but I am deeply curious about what people think, and do, and what drives them. I suppose that’s the anthropologist in me. And the philosopher.” 

     “You’re pretty well-read, then?” 

     “Oh, no. I only know bits and pieces. I just changed my major a lot.” 

  


**day 5**

 

     “Richard, there’s a storm coming in. You should head back soon.” 

     He looks up from his notebook, where he’s been scribbling down terrain and coordinates, and adding big stars on the map in red Sharpie. There’s a big, menacing cloud rolling in — not apocalyptic, but it would be easy to slip into a creek and drown, sure. 

     He entertains the idea. It’s his guilty pleasure to picture a rope snapping or himself losing his footing, feeling his stomach lurch, then snapping back into it. It was easier to get away with when he was more preoccupied, but now he’s in real life, and he feels palpable shame, the makes-you-want-to-throw-up-behind-a-stump kind. 

     Maybe Jared isn’t the last person he wants to talk to before he dies. 

     “The lookout at South Point just spotted lightning. How far are you from home?” 

     “I don’t know — ten or fifteen minutes?” 

     “Be safe, okay?” 

     The rain comes in, slowly then all at once. California storms are short and never as bad as everyone makes them out to be — nothing like back home in Tornado Alley — but the rain is almost warm and unpleasant, and he’s not dressed for the weather. He’s thankful for the tailwind, even if it blows his hair into his face, sticking to his forehead. 

     He hoists himself over a rock, the edge cutting into his stomach a little, and stays there on his hands and knees until he catches his breath. He turns around and looks over the edge. Miles and miles of pine trees all pointing towards him. Slow roll of thunder coming from the south, louder and louder until — 

     “Jared?” 

     He’s lying on his back with the wind knocked out of him, ears ringing like he’s fresh out of a rock concert. God only knows why picking up the radio was his first instinct. 

     Jared’s voice goes in and out, but he can tell what he’s asking him: _are you okay?_

     “I’m fine,” he says, “I just — the lightning — it hit the ground right by me and —”  

     “Did it _strike_ you?” 

     “I don’t think so.” 

     He stares at the ground, covered in soot, and notices the edge of a bush going up in flames. 

     “There’s, like, a tiny brush fire. Should I, um—“ 

     “It’ll be fine. Go home, Richard. Quickly.” 

  

* * *

  

     “It happened so fast,” he tells Jared later, sitting on the floor in front of the space heater, the big plaid blanket wrapped around his shoulders. He’s repeated the story at least twice, as he tries to remember as many details as he can. 

     “You’re incredibly lucky,” he says, which is what he’s been saying for the past half-hour. “I can’t imagine what that felt like.” 

     “Have you ever been electrocuted?” 

     “No.” 

     “I got electrocuted by a lamp when I was six. It felt like that — a big jolt.” 

     “Huh.” 

     The memory's suddenly fresh again. It was one of those awful lamps with the old-fashioned plugs, all tan, and he must have been at an aunt’s house or something when he touched an exposed bit of cord. All his nerves seemed to jump up and freeze at once. 

     He felt ashamed, but doesn’t remember why, exactly — he can’t even remember the first person who noticed. Maybe there was a scolding aunt or people fussing over the burn on his hand. His mother told him he wasn’t in trouble. _We were just scared, honey._

     He puts the radio back in the cradle and rests his head on the desk drawer. He can’t remember anything else, but maybe that was one of the nights Winnie sat on the floor, in the old house where they shared a room, and read from an old library paperback, because she was always reading, always a showoff (reading to her kid brother must have gotten her some kind of extra credit.) 

     She must have, because he remembers her bringing ice to his bandaged-up hand. Then she sat and opened the book and read: _Claudia hid her violin case in a sarcophagus that had no lid._

Richard mumbles it it out loud to himself. Afterwards, it was _It was a beautifully carved Roman sarcophagus_ , but there was maybe something in between, and he couldn’t remember the rest. He doesn’t remember the name of the book. He must have fallen asleep early.

     He drags the space heater across the room and gets into bed.   

 

* * *

_Richard? Wake up._

     He gets up and walks blindly to the desk, running into the table and bumping his knee on the chair. 

_Hey, kiddo. Are you okay?_

     “It’s… fine, I guess?” he says, staring out the window, mapping the shape of the side of a mountain. “It’s fine here.” 

_But are_ you _okay?_

     “I think so. How is — you know, your —“ 

_Richard. I don’t even know where you_ are _right now. As far as everyone knows you’re off doing some_ Into the Wild _shit in the middle of nowhere. Can you at least tell me you’re okay?_

     “I’m okay,” he says, but it barely comes out as a whisper. “I’m okay, Win, but — do you remember that book you read me, about the kids who run away to the museum?”

_You mean_ The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler? _What about it?_

     “You read it to me, because Ms. Keane had you in advanced language arts, ‘cause you were smarter than everyone else —“ 

_I wasn’t smarter. I just read better than the rest of the fourth grade._

     “We thought about running away to a museum too. Remember?” 

_But the only place nearby was the Gilcrease and all the Sioux massacre paintings freaked you out. And there’s no way you could’ve kept your mouth shut._

     “I miss that. I wish — sometimes I wish we were kids again, you know?” 

_Don’t say that. You were miserable._

     “Yeah, but about what? Nothing real. Just kid stuff.” 

_This isn’t like you. We’re worried._

     “I know. I’m sorry. But you’re — you’re all just being overprotective. I’m going to be okay. Right?” 

     He’s half-sitting in the wooden chair — a murky cloud passes in front of him, and the tiny light at the edge of camp disappears. Winnie doesn’t answer (she’s gone, out with her boyfriend, graduating in the black robe with the white and purple tassels, moving away) and so he shuts the radio off and rests his head on his elbows. The rain beats down on the metal roof for a few more minutes, then slowly peters out, and in the silence he falls asleep.


	2. great divide

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The earth opens up and swallows any hint of himself, any sign to say _I was here_ , completely whole.

**day 6**

 

     Richard wakes up with his cheek stuck to the desk. Humid summer heat seeps through the windows — once he wills himself to sit up, he touches the sills and realizes they’re wet. Last night was the end of a two-month drought. The first day of summer is in less than a week. 

     The isolation doesn’t bother him. It’s the traces of himself — muddy footprints from the night before, the tarp he laid out blown into a tree, the pail of water full of rain — and the rapid rate at which those traces disappear. Within a day the ground will be smooth again. The earth opens up and swallows any hint of himself, any sign to say _I was here_ , completely whole. 

     He, too, is impermanent, but it didn’t quite sink in until now. The idea still scares him, but it helps he’s not really alone.  

     “Richard, how are you? Did you see the fog this morning?” 

     “No,” he says, his voice tellingly groggy. “Slept through it.” 

     “Well, you’re from the Bay. You’re probably used to it by now.” 

     “I’m not _from_ there,” Richard says, deciding there’s no point in lying. “I just moved from there.” 

     “Oh? Where are you from, then?” 

     “Tulsa.” When Jared seems to hesitate, he tacks on “Oklahoma.” (That was usually the way he ended up telling people, as much as he tried to shy away from it. Many an interviewer had written him off as a hick before they’d even gotten past the small talk stage.) 

     “Your family still lives there?” 

     “Yeah, they do.” 

     “So what do they think of you being, you know, out here?” 

     “They’re probably worried I’m going to get mauled by a bear.” 

     His dryness must have caught Jared off guard, because he laughs, loudly, and then both of them are laughing over something that’s not very funny at all. The fact he made someone laugh (in a non-mean way) makes him feel better about the impermanence of things, his anxiety about what’s coming next, just for a while. 

 

* * *

 

     “Do you see the alders? That’s how you know you’re close to the river.”  

     “I — don’t actually know what an alder looks like.” 

     “You’d know it if you saw it. It’s got gray bark and egg-shaped leaves.” 

     “Does it have little cone things?” 

     “Yes. Little catkins.” 

     Richard doesn’t mean to laugh, but he does. “What’s a catkin?” 

     “It’s a kind of flower. _Trees and Shrubs of the Pacific Northwest_ , I think, says it comes from the old Dutch word for ‘kitten.’ I assume someone thought they looked like whiskers?” 

     “Or a tail.” 

     “Or a tail. That’s very astute.” 

     Looking down from the edge of a cliff, Richard suddenly feels nostalgic for Oklahoma, the redbud trees and the gold course by his house and reservoirs with mild, sandy edges. The Ozarks are laughably mild in comparison to California — here it's all harsh rocky angles and tall, evil-looking trees, like something out of a storybook. Nothing is familiar. 

     It’s a long drop down, but he makes it to a flat rock, sticking out over the edge of the river, and sits. Dinner is a peanut butter sandwich and a beer he found in the fridge, probably leftover from the last lookout. When he slipped the bottle into his bag he felt a touch of outdoorsmanly pride — drinking in the wilderness, like he was in someone’s _Walden_ fantasy or a commercial for some kind of mulch. 

     Of course, he realized too late he didn’t bring anything to open it with except a pocket knife, and the probability of slicing his thumb open is too high to bother. He eats his sandwich without anything to drink and marks up his map — “alders” in tiny letters, following the curve of the river. As he tries to figure out exactly where he is, he hears the radio crackle from his bag. 

     “Did you find it?” 

     “Yeah,” he says, still eating. “What were we talking about?” 

     Jared talks a lot. He gets the impression it’s only to him — while he mentions the other lookouts now and then, it’s not with any familiarity. The talking doesn’t bother Richard at all, which surprises him. It’s never to brag or patronizing or really anything except for a pleasant conversation. 

     He rarely talks about himself, either, beyond park-related anecdotes, and if he does it’s always something about his ornithology work (which he claims is really just a hobby, because the birds like to nest in the trees near his tower, and he’s always had a soft spot for birds.) Or some factoid about the local ecology or tree species or 1980s musical knowledge or anything, really, because his knowledge is vast, but has enough holes in it that they can jump from topic to topic and not get bored. 

     Richard understands. He used to give people six-paragraph (not counting the tangents) answers to a single question about programming as a budding geeky child. There were only a handful of people on the planet who could tolerate his habit of babbling on. But at some point in his adolescence he stopped, and started to clamp up without a lot of coaxing. 

     He still shuts down when Jared asks him anything, though. Even innocuous stuff like _how’s the research going_ or even _you sound a little tired, are you feeling well?_ He can’t help it — he taught himself to do this a long time ago. Keep his answers brief and his small talk impersonal and know when to be quiet. 

     “I think I was going to ask you how long you were in Palo Alto.” 

     “Five years,” Richard says. 

     “What made you leave?” 

     “I got this job. But —” he stops, thinks about _what_ made him leave, and realizes he hadn’t taken the time to answer the question. “I couldn’t pay the rent. I was only making, like, two hundred dollars a week, because I had this shitty coding job for a coupon site. And I had three other roommates that already hated me.”

     “Hated you?”

     “Yeah. Because I was in my room all the time working on this stupid app, and they all were into binge drinking and playing FIFA.”

     “I see.”  

     Richard swallows and gets the rest of the peanut butter off the roof of his mouth. His throat suddenly feels dry, like it often does when he’s been talking a while and isn’t sure if he’s supposed to be.

     “So I called my parents and they wired me the money — I’d _never_ asked them before, honest — and I was supposed to move back home. But then my old comp-sci professor emailed me and offered me this. He’s, uh, more into the outdoors than most of the department. Mountaineering and stuff. I think he climbed Everest.” 

     “Sorry, hold on.” Jared’s tone changes, and at first Richard’s stomach jumps, realizing he’s destroyed everything irreconcilably just by talking about himself. Then he says: “Do you see smoke coming from Sand Creek Basin? South of where you are?” 

     He looks up from the water. Maybe a mile or two downstream, there’s a reedy plume of smoke rising behind the trees. 

     “I see it too,” he says. “I think it’s just a campfire.” 

     “That’s what I thought, but I don’t know who would be out here — it’s Wednesday, and it just rained. Can you go check? I didn’t mean to interrupt you.” 

     “That was all I was going to say, anyway.” 

     He’d just climbed back over the edge of the canyon, and is fumbling with his compass, when Jared radios again. “The scoutmaster at Camp Yurok just called. Says he has a couple of, um, rogue scouts. They might be the culprit.” 

     “Camp Yurok?” 

     “It’s not actually a regionally accurate name. We’re a little further northeast than the Yurok people, but taking it up with the scouts' association seems like more trouble than it’s worth.” 

     “So what are they like?” 

     “The camp? Erlich’s nice enough. I always thought there was something strange about a grown adult herding a troop of boys around, though.” 

     Richard was never a scout. He was notably terrible at pretty much any hobby his parents coaxed him into — soccer, ceramics, even chess. His father told him stories of when he was a Boy Scout, the fun he had, and the specific memory of his troop leader shooting at stoplights with an air rifle. He wonders if they still let fifteen-year-old boys shoot rifles. 

     He follows the trail, and pushes back a thicket of bushes shrouding a tiny campsite. Sitting there are two boys — one pouring lighter fluid on a load of kindling, the other smoking a cigarette.

     One of them notices Richard and freezes up like a deer in the headlights. The other tries to make a break for it. 

     “Pulaski? O’Brien?” someone calls, from the other side of the trail. “Are you out there?” 

     A man in matching khaki emerges behind them, and the boys immediately stand at attention. Richard notices _Bachmann_ stitched on his shirt. 

     “Jesus _wept_ , Josh,” he says — his voice is naturally loud, even when he’s not yelling. “No matter how much fluid you pour on that thing, it’s never going to light, because the goddamn firewood is wet. Where the hell is your fire safety badge?” 

     “Don’t have it,” the kid says, indifferent but respectful. Bachmann snatches the lighter fluid and the lit cigarette right out of Pulaski’s hand. 

     “Get someone to teach you how to build a fire. And Pulaski — if you’re going to smoke drugs out here, get an ashtray. Del Norte County’s still in a drought. Tap that thing out on the grass and this whole place goes up like a powder keg.” 

     He notices Richard in the corner of his eye, and gestures to the kids — _get a move on_. “Get back to camp while I talk to this gentleman.”

     When they’re gone, he puffs on what’s left on the joint, looking Richard over. He scoffs. “You’re the new lookout? There’s no way you’re a park ranger.”

     “Just a researcher.”

     “So you’re, what, examining the lichens and such?”

     “Wildfires, actually,” Richard says, grateful he can condense his explanation. “How they behave.”

     “Huh.” Bachmann tilts his chin up, looking at him like he’s at least _somewhat_ gotten his attention. “What’s your name?”

     “Richard.”

     “Well, Richard, I’d thank you for your help, but it looks like I beat you to the punch. Erlich Bachmann.” They shake hands, briefly, and then he turns around. “Enjoy your summer.”   

     He disappears down the trail. Richard looks up and see’s it’s almost sunset; the sky is painted up in brilliant oranges and pinks. He sits by the embers and opens his (warm) bottle of beer with a discarded cigarette lighter. It’s hops, which he doesn’t like, so he drinks half of it, leaves it behind, and walks home in the dusk.      

  **day 15**

“Hey. The supply drop is supposed to be here at noon.” 

      Richard checks his watch — it’s five-thirty in the morning. He’s sitting on the end of a cliff, beat-up tan jacket around his shoulders to ward off the cold. 

     “What’s in it?” 

     “Usually just canned food and jerky, bottled water, that kind of thing. Maybe a newspaper or a Hershey bar.” 

     “A Hershey bar,” Richard repeats, still a little sluggish. He’s tried not to think about junk food for over two weeks, but he’s already trying to remember what it tastes like. “Won’t it melt?” 

     “Not if you get to it right away. There’s a better chance one of the other lookouts will take it.” 

     “I’ll get there early,” he says.

     “Okay. Enjoy the sunrise.”

**day 18**

“Are you really going fishing?” 

     “Trying to,” Richard says, lugging a cooler and a hand-me-down fishing rod down to the lake. The cooler is heavy — whenever he stops to set it down, his arm floats up a little. 

     “Salmon run is in a couple of months,” Jared says. “You could borrow a fishing boat.” 

     “I don’t know. I’m just tired of eating jerky.” 

     “You’re already a better outdoorsman than me. I’m stuck up here doing these lesson plans.”  

     “For what, your next mini-lecture on botany?” 

     “No, silly. For my class.” Jared recognizes the brief pause as confusion. “I teach math back home, when I’m not doing this.” 

     It takes four or five times to cast the hook properly, having remembered absolutely nothing from the singular fishing trip he’d been on with his uncles. He’s also busy imagining Jared as a math teacher — it makes perfect sense, but something about it is strange. 

     “For some reason I thought you just, I don’t know, lived out here,” he says — he realizes that must sound rude, and he laughs nervously. “But, I mean — of course you don’t. Where do you teach?” 

     “Norwood High School,” Jared says. “It’s, um — in Massachusetts, actually. Outside of Boston.” 

     “Oh. Wow.” His mouth is dry again. “What kind of math?” 

     “Statistics. And junior year geometry, but — I consider myself a statistics teacher at heart.” 

     “Wow.” He tries to picture Jared grading papers and writing on a blackboard, but of course, he doesn’t even know what he looks like. His head jumps to _A Beautiful Mind_ , Russell Crowe in rolled-up shirtsleeves (which is wildly inappropriate, but it awakens that old longing feeling he thought he’d buried.) 

     Then something heavy is pulling on the fishing line. 

     “Everything okay?” Jared asks. 

     “Sorry, I — I think I’m catching something.” 

     “Really? You know how to reel it in, right?” 

     “Slowly?” 

     “Well, God, Richard, not _too_ slowly.” 

     Whatever’s on the hook is stuck there. He reels it in and yanks it up — it’s a fat trout, the same kind he’s seen at the bottom of the lake. He drops it in the cooler and watches it flop pathetically on the ice. Even when he looks away, he can still hear it against the hollow styrofoam. At first he feels sick, but by the time it lets out its last gasp, he’s already thinking about how he’s hungry. 

     “I got it.” 

     “Nice work.” 

     He guts it the way his uncle taught him ( _that_ , he remembers) and drags the cooler back to camp. Then he fries it up with margarine and the unlabeled spices in the cabinet, and eats it while watching the sun set. It’s not bad.  

**day 21**

“Are you up?” he asks blearily. It’s a quarter to midnight. 

     “I thought you were turning in early.” 

     “I did,” Richard says, digging through the desk drawers for the leftover fifth of gin. He never drinks the stuff, but it’s supposed to ease your nerves. “I just woke up from a weird dream.” 

     “What was it about?” 

     “A forest fire.” He realizes how obvious it is and laughs. “I, um — I heard my sister’s voice. She was looking for me in the park. I think.” 

     “What’s your sister’s name?” 

     “Winnie. Why?” 

     “It’s just that —” he hears Jared suck in a hesitant breath. “One of the first nights you were here, you were talking to yourself on the radio. To a Winnie.” 

     “What?” 

     “You must have been half-asleep. You were having a conversation with her. And since you never did it again after, I thought I wouldn’t mention it—” 

     “What did I say?” Richard says, suddenly panicky. There are so many incriminating things he could have said that he can’t even think of the worst one. 

     “Nothing! Honestly, you were mumbling for half of it. But you kept asking if you were going to be okay.” 

     “Oh.” 

     “And I don’t think anyone answered, but Richard, you _are_ okay. You’re doing better than the people who’ve been doing this for years. I’ve seen enough human beings to know.” 

     “I—” he shakes his head. If he says anything it’ll all come out in the wrong order and all of it will be humiliating. “Thanks.” 

     “Of course.” Jared’s voice still sounds warm, even if Richard’s being kind of an asshole. “Maybe — drink something and go back to sleep.” 

     “Yeah.” 

     He pours himself a shot of Tanqueray and drinks it all. It goes down like rubbing alcohol, but it’ll do. Sitting on the end of the bed, he notices the binoculars on the night table.

     His morbid curiosity gets the best of him, again. Jared’s light is still on — Richard looks out the window flush with his bed and zooms in as far as he can go. All he can see are shapes, even when he focuses. He sees him sitting at his desk — dark hair and a blue shirt, maybe white, tall and skinny. 

     Then Jared gets up and turns to the window facing South Point. He can’t possibly see Richard, but he sees him — he leans against the glass and rests his hand against the blinds, like he’s done it a thousand times before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for your patience with these updates!

**Author's Note:**

> i decided to make it a multi, so yall get ready. this is mad niche and special interest heavy. like this is bad even for me.
> 
> if you wanna be my lover/see when I update, [follow my tumblr blog](http://bachmannsearningsoverride.tumblr.com/)


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